‘StarCraft 2’ Patch 1.2 Adds Stalemate Detection & Master’s League

ï»¿Proving themselves to be the developer that loves to improve upon their already fantastic game experiences, Blizzard has just released a fairly extensive update to StarCraft 2. Numbering in at 1.2, this patch brings with it some race tweaks, a new league, and some new Battle.net chat features, among others.

In a game that some play for days or hours on end, it gets to the point where players struggle to find reasonable competition. With the newest league introduction, the Master’s League, a new tier of matches will be possible, thus widening the playing field across the board.

Another useful part of the patch is stalemate detection. Reducing the amount of time a player with no chance of winning can prolong a match, the stalemate detection will end the game if no income, production, or destroyed structures are detected for three minutes.

The list is so extensive it’s hard to cover even just the highlights in one succinct post, so without further ado here is a complete list of what’s contained in StarCraft 2 Patch 1.2:

General

Battle.net Chat Channels have been added! Players can now join others in both public and private channels.

Added in-game chat bar command to whisper to other players. Using the “/w” command will open up a list of available friends, party members, chat channels, and other players within your current game.

A new Master League has been added! This league now represents the highest tier of players.

Customizable Hotkey Support has been added.

Stalemate Detection has been added. This will end the game in a tie for all remaining players if no players have income, production, or destroyed structures for three consecutive minutes. A countdown timer will now appear when the game detects this scenario.

An Extreme graphics option is now available. Players can now configure screen space ambient occlusion.

Additional Improvements and Changes

Several help dialogue and tech tree improvements have been made:

In-game help is now available in Battle.net.

The help dialog’s tech tree has been improved.

Unit information in the help dialog now displays abilities and upgrades.

Several Save/Replay File dialogue improvements have been made:

Added ability to sort replays and saved games by name and date.

Added ability to right-click and rename a replay or saved game from within the game interface.

Added a new tab for auto-saved games and unsaved replays.

Added an option to permanently save all replays. Checking this option will mark all unsaved replays as being saved.

Added visibility for where replays and saved games are being saved to.

Added a “Show in Folder” button which will open the location where a replay or saved game is stored on your computer.

Camera following behavior for observers and replays has been improved.

The System Alert panel has been moved to the top of the screen and the duration of most system alerts has been reduced.

Mouse buttons can now be bound to the Push-To-Talk hotkey.

A hotkey indicator option has been added to show the primary hotkey on top of command buttons.

When selecting a Vespene geyser, the number of current harvesters will be displayed in the info panel.

Added an option to disable any error sounds. The Response Sounds checkbox now controls whether unit-specific audio is used for error sounds instead of a generic buzz.

Added Game UI layout per-map overrides. Map makers can now use custom UI layout files to create new UI or override existing game UI.

Added a toggle button to the in-game replay panel to Show or Hide the timeline/duration information.

Added hotkey to Pause/Resume game for both single player and multiplayer (Pause/Break key).

Balance

General

Players can no longer block off ramps with two 2×2 buildings.

Protoss

Hallucination research time decreased from 110 to 80.

Observer

Cost decreased from 50/100 to 25/75.

Phoenix

Build time decreased from 45 to 35.

Void Ray

Now deals 20% more damage to massive targets.

Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.

Terran

SCV

Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.

SCV construction movement has been made more consistent.

StarCraft II Editor Improvements

Map locale management has been added.

Further editor tips and hints have been added.

New trigger functions, actions, and events have been added:

New trigger functions:

Verify Bank – used to verify that a bank’s signature is intact.

New trigger actions:

Bank Option – used to change options for banks including adding a signature.

Remove Inventory Item – used to instantly remove a requested item from an inventory.

Set Visibility Type Of Text Tag – used to control whether fog or black mask hides the tag.

New trigger events:

Mouse Moved – sent in response to the mouse being moved in the game world.

New Effect Used event property has been added: Life, Shields, and Energy changed.

Behaviors can now be replaced by either the shortest duration (the original method) or by farthest distance.

Behavior abilities can now properly charge the player using the ability instead of always charging the owner.

Right clicking an item in an inventory will now have the icon appear immediately next to the cursor.

Font Style Files can now be added to Mods and Maps using the FontStyleFileArray field in GameUIData. Existing styles can have their individual attributes overridden or entirely new styles can be added.

UI Layout files can now be added to Mods and Maps using the CustomLayoutFileArray filed in GameUIData. Most existing frames can be modified or overridden and entirely new templates can be added which can be created from the Dialog system within the Editor.

Attributes and values can now be hidden in the game lobby and can be configured through Game Variants.

Attribute and Veterancy behaviors now normalize vitals when new levels are applied.

The mouse wheel now scrolls the control under the cursor.

Copied doodads now retain their height offset

Mouse clicks and highlights are now allowed while in relative camera mode.

Edit boxes are now available for trigger dialogs.

The game will now properly find custom imported files within mods.

Maps can now depend on even more mods.

Dialog Items can now be hooked up from already existing frames within a created Panel.

Change Focus commands are now available in the Trigger module View menu for switching input focus directly to different areas.

The water editor layout has been improved.

Effect offsets can now optionally contain a Z component.

Added a new type of Dialog Item called Panel. Panels are containers for other dialog items to help with grouping and hierarchy.

Added an Editor Tips dialog in the Help menu (and optionally on start up) with tips for using the editor effectively.

Bug Fixes

Gameplay

General

All diagonal ramps are now the same with regards to unbuildable locations at the bottom of the ramps.

Critter health bars are now hidden unless highlighted or selected (if status bars are set to show when units are selected).

Orders can no longer be canceled by clicking on the info panel in challenges before the challenge begins.

Text tags are now paused when the game is paused.

Autocast state for abilities will now reset to the default state when unit ownership is permanently changed.

Autocast repair will now charge the player requesting autocast functionality.

Repair will now clear its autocast state if the owning player leaves the game.

Harvest orders no longer end if an order is queued while waiting to return cargo.

Harvesting units no longer avoid enemy units.

Hold position units no longer automatically move out of the way when placing a building.

Enemy units no longer show passive buttons in the command card.

Missiles are no longer affected by Vortex.

Actors with a large number of create events no longer crash the map.

Fixed an issue where cliff jumping units were able to traverse unpathable terrain.

Fixed an issue with units trying to get out of the way so buildings can be constructed.

Fixed an issue with harvesting units bypassing force fields.

Fixed an issue where melee units were unable to attack a colossus when it was on a cliff.

Fixed an issue where larva would not wander around.

Fixed an issues where loading a saved Challenge could improperly overwrite the best score.

Fixed an issue with animation stutters when flying units are separating.

Fixed an issue where units could push opposing units when they shouldn’t have been able to.

Added “Detector” text to the info panel for units which can detect cloaked or burrowed units.

Added combat reveal tinting to help show that combat reveal units cannot be hit.

Protoss

Protoss structures can no longer be powered without a power source if constructed while powered by a Warp Prism under the effects of Neural Parasite.

Mass Recall can no longer target larva or eggs.

Fixed an issue where units that were picked up by a Graviton Beam would still block pathing on the ground.

Fixed an issue where a Zealot could burn its Charge cooldown without actually moving.

Terran

Changed the position of the Select Builder button on Terran buildings, and changed the hotkey to Q.

SCVs can no longer continue construction on a building from inside an adjacent bunker.

Fixed nuke dot not being visible all the time.

Fixed an issue where you could see an enemy MULE drop pod in some cases where you didn’t have vision of the target location.

Fixed an issue where a Medivac would be able to continue healing a unit that was stuck in a Graviton Beam if the Medivac had started healing the unit before it was picked up by the Graviton Beam.

Fixed an issue where a Thor would continue to channel 250mm Strike Cannons on an uplifted Terran building if it lifted off at just the right time.

Fixed an issue where a Thor could get stuck channeling if a player queued up multiple targets for 250mm Strike Cannons.

Fixed an issue where SCVs could continue repairing at a short range even though the structure they were repairing was blocked by Force Fields.

Zerg

Creep will now spread evenly in all directions.

The Burrow and Cancel Neural Parasite buttons have been moved on the command card.

Fixed an issue with Ultralisk unable to attack a row of sensor towers.

StarCraft II Editor

The “For Each Real” and “For Each Integer” actions will now correctly execute once when the starting and ending bounds are equal while the increment is also zero.

Items dropped from an inventory will now use their default height when dropped.

The View Script command will now view library scripts if the library list has focus.

Carried and equipped item behaviors and weapons are now restored properly when a unit is revived.

Publish dialog now updates storage information after removing a published file in the Managed Published window.

Dropdowns now correctly select items as you type using partial matching.

Standard dependencies can no longer be modified in the Dependencies dialog (only added or removed).

Camera following can no longer be disabled via hotkeys if it was requested via triggers.

Fixed an issue with editing stylized text values when using system locales other than English.

Fixed an issue with Veterancy experience share filters.

Fixed an issue when editing mover data where values were not being saved correctly.

Fixed an issue that prevented certain changes to angle values.

Fixed an issue where selection circles would drop when a flying unit was over a cliff.

Fixed an issue where the scroll bar for tree views could disappear.

Fixed an issue where triggers setting the mouse relative could result in the mouse being stuck in relative move mode.

Fixed an issue where setting the color of a dialog item of type label wasn’t working.

Fixed a crash that could occur while editing upgrade values.

Fixed text truncation with Set Text actor message.

Fixed display of ability command links in the Overview Manager.

Fixed many areas where English text was displayed instead of localized text.

Fixed a crash when destroying a persistent effect.

One notable element of the patch in the race-balancing department is the lack of Zerg performance tweaks. Considered to be the most challenging race to use, the Zerg have for a long time been the rumored benefactors of a patch in order to make them more approachable. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen during this patch cycle. Perhaps the inevitable Zerg tweaks are being saved for the second chapter of StarCraft 2 that focuses on the Zerg storyline.

While most of these improvements are on the back end and thus will go largely unnoticed (or will only affect players who utilize a particular StarCraft 2 strategy), there will undoubtedly be at least one new feature that will be beneficial to any StarCraft 2 player. Most patches try and improve the experience, or to call players back to a game they have left for a bit. For Blizzard, these are just the monthly/weekly presents to their loyal fans.

What is the biggest change brought with patch 1.2? What do you hope to see included as part of a future StarCraft 2 update?